SENATE No. 2. 



E513 VALEDICTORY ADDEESS 

.M45 



I 



HIS EXCELLENCY 

JOHN A. ANDREW, 



TWO BEANCHES 



fejishture of Passadjusetts, 



JANUARY 4, 1866 



' 


BOSTON: 




WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, 




No. 4 Spring Lane. 




1866. 


] 













2. t ) ^ 
'0(0 



E 5 ■ I 3 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Senate, and the 

House of Representatives : 

The people of Massachusetts have vindicated alike 
their intelligence, their patriotism, their will, and their 
power ; both in the cultivation of the arts of Peace, 
and in the prosecution of just and unavoidable War. 
At the end of five years of Executive administration, 
I appear before a Convention of the two Houses of 
her General Court, in the execution of a final duty. 

For nearly all that period, the Commonwealth, as a 
loyal State of the American Union, has been occu- 
pied, within her sphere of co-operation, in helping to 
maintain, by arms, the power of the nation, the liber- 
ties of the people, and the rights of human nature. 

Having contributed to the Army and the Navy — 
including regulars, volunteers, seamen and marines, 
men of all arms and officers of all grades, and of the 
various terms of service, — an aggregate of one hun- 
dred and fifty-nine thousand one hundred and sixty- 
five men ; and having expended for the war, out of 



4 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

her own Treasury, twenty-seven million seven hun- 
dred and five thousand one hundred and nine dollars, 
— besides the expenditures of her cities and towns, 
she has maintained, by the unfailing energy and econ- 
omy of her sons and daughters, her industry and 
thrift, even in the waste of war. She has paid 
promptly, and in gold, all interest on her bonds, — 
including the old and the new, — guarding her faith 
and honor with every public creditor, while still fight- 
ing the public enemy ; and now, at last;, in retiring 
from her service, I confess the satisfaction of having 
first seen all of her regiments and batteries, (save two 
battalions,) returned and mustered out of the Army ; 
and of leaving her treasury provided for, by the for- 
tunate and profitable negotiation of all the permanent 
loan needed or foreseen — with her financial credit 
maintained at home and abroad, her public securities 
imsurpassed, if even equalled, in value in the money 
market of the world by those of any State or of the 
Nation. 

I have already had the honor to lay before the 
General Court, by special message to the Senate, a 
statement of all afi"airs which demand my own official 
communication. And, it only remains for me, to 
transfer, at the appropriate moment, the cares, the 
honors, and the responsibilities of office, to the hands 
of that eminent and patriotic citizen, on whose public 
experience and ability the Commonwealth so justly 
relies. 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 5 

But, perhaps, before descending, for the last time, 
from this venerable seat, I may be indulged in some 
allusion to the broad field of thought and statesman- 
ship, to which the war itself has conducted us. As I 
leave the Temple where, humbled by my unworthi- 
ness, I have stood so long, like a priest of Israel 
sprinkling the blood of the holy sacrifice on the altar 
— I would fain contemplate the solemn and manly 
duties which remain to us who survive the slain, in 
honor of their memory and in obedience to God. 

The Nation having been ousted by armed Rebellion 
of its just possession, and the exercise of its constitu- 
tional jurisdiction over the territory of the Rebel 
States, has now at last, by the suppression of the 
Rebellion, (accomplished by the victories of . the 
national arms over those of the Rebels), regained 
possession and restored its own rightful sway. 

The Rebels had overthrown the loyal State Gov- 
ernments. They had made war against the Union. 
The government of each Rebel State had not only 
withdrawn its allegiance ; but had given in its ad- 
hesion to another, viz., The Confederate Government, — 
a government, not only injurious by its very creation, 
but hostile to, and in arms against, the Union, assert- 
ing and exercising belligerent rights, both on land 
and sea, and seeking alliances with foreign nations, 
even demanding the armed intervention of neutral 
powers. 



6 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

The pretensions of this " Confederacy " were' main- 
tained for some four years, in one of the most 
extensive, persistent and bloody wars of History. 
To overcome it and maintain the rights and the very 
existence of the Union, our National Government 
was compelled to keep on foot one of the most 
stupendous military establishments the world has ever 
known. And probably the same amount of force, 
naval and military, was never organized and involved 
in any national controversy. 

On both sides there was war, with all its incidents, 
all its claims, its rights and its results. 

The States in rebellion tried, under the lead of 
their new Confederacy, to conquer the Union ; but 
in the attempt they were themselves conquered. 

They did not revert by their rebellion, nor by 
our conquest, into " Territories." They did not 
commit suicide. But they rebelled, they went to 
war ; and they were cotiquered. 

A " territory " of the United States is a possession, 
or dependency, of the United States, having none of 
the distinctive, constitutional attributes of a State. A 
territory might be in rebellion ; but not thereby cease 
to be a territory. It would be properly described as 
a territory in rebellion. Neither does a State in rebel- 
lion cease to be a State. It would be correctly des- 
cribed, a State in rebellion. And it would be subject 
to the proper consequences of rebellion, both direct 
and incidental, — among which may be that of military 



1866.] » SENATE— No. 2. 7 

government, or supervision, by the nation, determin- 
able only by the nation, at its own just discretion, in 
the due exercise of the rights of war. The power to 
put an end to its life is not an attribute of a State of 
our Union. Nor can the Union put an end to its 
own life, save by an alteration of the National Con- 
stitution, or by suffering such defeat, in war, as to 
bring it under the jurisdiction of a conqueror. The 
nation has a vested interest in the life of the indi- 
vidual State. The States have a vested interest in 
the life of the Union. I do not perceive, therefore, 
how a State has the power by its own action alone, 
without the co-operation of the Union, to destroy the 
continuity of its corporate life. Nor do I perceive 
how the National Union can by its own action, with- 
out the action or omission of the States, destroy the 
continuity of its own corporate life. It seems to me 
that the stream of life flows through both State and 
Nation from a double source ; which is a distinguish- 
ing element of its vital power. Eccentricity of motion 
is not death ; nor is abnormal action organic change. 

The position of the rebel States is fixed by the 
Constitution, and by the laws, or rights, of war. If 
they had conquered the Union, they might have become 
independent, or whatever else it might have been 
stipulated they should become, by the terms of an 
ultimate treaty of peace. But being conquered, they 
failed in becoming independent, and they failed in 
accomplishing anything but their own conquest. They 



8 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

were still States, — though belligerents conquered. 
But they had lost their loyal organization as States, lost 
their present possession of their political and repre- 
sentative power in the Union. Under the Constitution 
they have no means nor power of their own to regain 
it. But the exigency is provided for by that clause in 
the Federal Constitution in which the Federal Gov- 
ernment guarantees a republican form of government 
to every State. The regular and formal method 
would be, therefore, for the National Government 
to provide specifically for their reorganization. 

The right and duty, however, of the General Gov- 
ernment, under the circumstances of their present 
case, is not the single one of re-organizing these 
disorganized States. The war imposed rights and 
duties, peculiar to itself and to the relations and 
the results of War. The first duty of the Nation is 
to regain its own power. It has already made a great 
advance in the direction of its power. 

If ours Avere a despotic government, it might even 
now be thought that it had already accomplished the 
re-establishment of its power as a government. But, 
ours being a republican and a popular government, it 
cannot be aflfirmed, that the proper power of the 
government is restored, until a peaceful, loyal and 
faithful state of mind gains a sufiacient ascendency in 
the rebel and belligerent States, to enable the Union 
and loyal citizens everywhere to repose alike on the 
purpose and the ability of their people, in point 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 9 

of numbers and capacity, to assert, maintain and 
conduct State Governments, republican in form, 
loyal in sentiment and character, with safety to them- 
selves and to the national whole. If the people, or 
too large a portion of the people, of a given rebel 
State, are not willing and able to do this, then the 
state of war still exists, or at least, a condition 
consequent upon and incidental thereto exists, which 
only the exercise on our part of belligerent rights, 
or some of their incidents, can meet or can cure. 
The rights of war must continue until the objects 
of the war have been accomplished, and the nation 
recognizes the return of a . state of peace. It is 
absolutely necessary then for the Union Govern- 
ment to prescribe some reasonable test of loyalty 
to the people of the States in rebellion. It is neces- 
sary to require of them conformity to those arrange- 
ments w^hich the war has rendered, or proved to be, 
necessary to the public peace and necessary as 
securities for the future. As the conquering party, 
the National Government has the right to govern 
these belligerent States meanwhile, at its own wise 
and conscientious discretion, subject: 1st. To the 
demands of natural justice, humanity and the 
usages of civilized nations. 2d. To its duty under 
the Constitution, to guarantee Republican govern- 
ments to the States. 

But, there is no arbiter, save the people of the 
United States, between the Government of the Union 



10 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

and those States. Therefore the precise things to be 
done, the precise way to do them, the precise steps to 
be taken, their order, progress and direction, are all 
within the discretion of the National Government, in 
the exercise, both of its belligerent, and its more 
strictly constitutional, functions, — exercising them 
according to its own wise, prudent and just discretion. 
Its duty is not only to restore those States, but also to 
make sure of a lasting peace, of its own ultimate 
safety, and the permanent establishment of the rights 
of all its subjects. To this end, I venture the 
opinion that the Government of the United States 
ought to require the people of those States to reform 
their Constitutions, — 

1. Guaranteeing to the people of color, now the 
wards of the Nation, their civil rights as men and 
women, on an equality with the white population, 
by amendments, irrepealable in terms. 

2. E.egulating the elective franchise according to 
certain laws of universal application, and not by 
rules merely arbitrary, capricious and personal. 

3. Annulling the ordinances of Secession. 

4. Disaffirming the Rebel Debt, and 

5. To ratify the anti-slavery amendment of the 
United States Constitution by their legislatures. 

And I would have all these questions, save the 
fifth — the disposition of which is regulated by the 
Federal Constitution — put to the vote of the People 
themselves. We should neither be satisfied with the 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 11 

action of the conventions which have been held, nor 
with what is termed the " loyal vote." We want the 
popular vote. And the rebel vote is better than the 
loyal vote, if on the right side. If it is not on the right 
side, then I fear those States are incapable at present 
of re-organization ; the proper power of the Union 
Government is not restored ; the people of those 
States are not yet prepared to assume their original 
functions with safety to the Union ; and the state of 
war still exists ; for they are contumacious and dis- 
obedient to the just demands of the Union, disowning 
the just conditions precedent to re-organization. 

We are desirous of their re-organization, and to end 
the use of the war power. But I am confident we 
cannot re-organize political society with any proper 
security : 1. Unless we let in the people to a co-opera- 
tion, and not merely an arbitrarily selected portion of 
them. 2. Unless we give those who are, by their 
intelligence and character, the natural leaders of the 
people, and who surely will lead them by and by, an 
opportunity to lead them now. 

I am aware that it has been a favorite dogma in 
many quarters, " No Rebel Voters^ But — it is 
impossible in certain States to have a7iy voting by 
white men, if only " loyal men " — i. e., those who con- 
tinued so, during the rebellion, are permitted to vote. 
This proposition is so clear that the President adopted 
the expedient of assuming that those who had not 
risen above certain civil or military grades in the 



12 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

Hebel public service, and who had neither inherited 
nor earned more than a certain amount of property, 
should be deemed and taken to be sufficiently harm- 
less to be intrusted with the suffrage in the work of 
re-organization. Although there is some reason for 
assuming that the less conspicuous and less wealthy 
classes of men had less to do than their more tower- 
ing neighbors in conducting the States into the 
Rebellion and through it — still I do not imagine that 
either wealth or conspicuous position, which are only 
the accidents of men, or at most, only external 
incidents, affect the substance of their characters. 
I think the poorer and less significant men who 
voted, or fought, for " Southern Independence " had 
quite as little love for " the Yankees," quite as much 
prejudice against " the Abolitionists," quite as much 
contempt for the colored man, and quite as much 
disloyalty at heart, as their more powerful neighbors. 

The true question is, now, not of past disloyalty, 
but of present loyal purpose. We need not try to 
disguise the fact, that we have passed through a great 
'popular revolution. Everybody in the Rebel States 
was disloyal, with exceptions too few and too far be- 
tween to comprise a loyal force, sufficient to constitute 
the State, even now that the armies of the 
Rebellion are overthrown. Do not let us de- 
ceive ourselves. The truth is, the public opinion 
of the white race in the South was in favor of the 
rebellion. The colored people sympathized with 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 13 

the Union cause. To the extent of their intel- 
ligence, they understood that the success of the South 
meant their continued slavery ; that an easy success 
of the North meant leaving slavery just where we 
found it ; that the War meant, if it lasted long 
enough — their emancipation. The whites went to war 
and supported the war ; because they hoped to suc- 
ceed in it ; since they wanted, or thought they wanted, 
separation from the Union, or " Southern Indepen- 
dence." There were, then, tlu*ee great interests — 
there were the Southern whites, who as a body, wished 
for what they called " Southern Independence ; " the 
Southern blacks, who desired emancipation ; the 
people of the " loyal States " who desired to maintain 
the constitutional rights and the territorial integrity of 
the Nation. Some of us in the North had a strong 
hope, which by the favor of God has not been disap- 
pointed, out of our defence of the Union to accom- 
plish the deliverance of our fellow-men in bondage. 
But the " loi/al " idea included emancipation, not for 
its own sake, but for the sake of the Union — if the 
Union could be saved, or served, by it. There were 
many men in the South — besides those known 
as loyal — who did not like to incur the respon- 
sibility of war against the Union ; or who did not 
think the opportune moment had arrived to fight 
" the North " ; or in whose hearts there was " a divided 
allegiance." But, they were not the positive men. 
They were, with very few exceptions, not the leading 



14 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

minds, the courageous men, the impressive and pow- 
erful characters, — they were not the young and active 
men. And when the decisive hour came, they went to 
the wall. No matter what they thought, or how they 
felt, about it ; they could not stand or they would not 
stand — certainly they did not stand, against the storm. 
The Revolution either converted them, or swept them 
off their feet. Their own sons volunteered. They 
became involved in all the work and in all the con- 
sequences of the war. The Southern People — as a 
People — fought, toiled, endured, and persevered, with 
a courage, a unanimity and a persistency, not outdone 
by any people in any Revolution. There was never 
an acre of territory abandoned to the Union while it 
could be held by arms. There was never a Rebel 
regimeftt surrendered to the Union arms until resis- 
tance was overcome by force ; or a surrender was 
compelled by the stress of battle, or of military 
strategy. The people of the South, men and women, 
soldiers and civilians, volunteers and conscripts, in 
the army and at home, followed the fortunes of the 
Rebellion and obeyed its leaders, so long as it had 
any fortunes or any leaders. Their young men 
marched up to the cannon's mouth, a thousand times, 
where they were mowed down like grain by the 
reapers when the harvest is ripe. Some men had 
the faculty, and the faith in the Rebel cause, to 
become its leaders. The others had the faculty and 
the faith to follow them. 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 15 

All honor to the loyal few ! But I do not regard 
the distinction between loyal and disloyal persons 
of the white race, residing in the South, during the 
rebellion, as being, for present purposes, a practical 
distinction. It is even doubtful whether the compara- 
tively loyal few, (with certain prominent and honor- 
able exceptions,) can be well discriminated from the 
disloyal mass. And since the President finds himself 
obliged to let in the great mass of the disloyal, by the 
very terms of his proclamation of amnesty, to a parti- 
cipation in the business of reorganizing the Rebel 
States, I am obliged also to confess that I think 
to make one rule for the richer and higher rebels, 
and another rule for the poorer and more lowly 
rebels is impolitic and unphilosophical. I find evi- 
dence in the granting of pardons, that such also is the 
opinion of the President. 

When the day arrives, which must surely come, 
when an amnesty, substantially universal, shall be 
proclaimed, the leading minds of the South, who by 
temporary policy and artificial rules had been, for the 
while, disfranchised, will resume their influence and 
their sway. The capacity of leadership is a gift, 
not a device. They whose courage, talents and 
will entitle them to lead, will lead. And these 
men — not then estopped by their own consent or 
participation, in the business of re-organization — may 
not be slow to question the validity of great public 
transactions enacted during their own disfranchise- 



16 I VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

ment. If it is asked, in reply, "What can they 
do ] " and " What can come of their discontent ? " 
I answer, that while I do not know just what they 
can do, nor what may come of it, neither do I know 
what they may not attempt, nor what they may 
not accomplish. I only know that we ought to 
demand, and to secure, the co-operation of the 
strongest and ablest minds and the natural leaders 
of opinion in the South. If we cannot gain their 
support of the just measures needful for the work of 
safe re-organization, re-organization will be delusive 
and full of danger. 

Why not try them ? They are the most hopeful 
subjects to deal with, in the very nature of the case. 
They have the brain and the experience and the 
education to enable them to understand the exigencies 
of the present situation. They have the courage, as 
well as the skill, to lead the people in the direction 
their judgments point, in spite of their own and the 
popular prejudice. Weaker men, those of less expe- 
rience, who have less hold on the public confidence, 
are comparatively powerless. Is it consistent with 
reason and our knowledge of human nature, to believe 
the masses of Southern men able- to face about, to 
turn their backs on those they have trusted and 
followed, and to adopt the lead of those who have no 
magnetic hold on their hearts or minds 1 Re-organi- 
zation in the South demands the aid of men of great 
moral courage, who can renounce thek own past 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 17 

opinions, and do it boldly; who can comprehend what 
the work is, and what are the logical consequences of 
the new situation ; men who have interests urging 
them to rise to the height of the occasion. They are 
not the strong men from whom weak, vacillating 
counsels come ; nor are they the great men from 
whom come counsels born of prejudices and follies, 
having theh root in an institution they know to 
be dead, and buried beyond the hope of resurrection. 
Plas it never occurred to us all, that we are now 
proposing the most wonderful and unprecedented 
of human transactions ? The conquering govern- 
ment, at the close of a great war, is about restoring 
to the conquered rebels not only theu* local govern- 
ments in the States, but their representative share in 
the general government of the country ! They are, in 
their States, to govern themselves as they did before 
the rebellion. The conquered rebels are, in the 
Union, to help govern and control the conquering 
loyalists ! ! These being the privileges which they 
are to enjoy, when re-organization becomes complete, 
I declare that I know not any safeguard, precaution, 
or act of prudence, which wise statesmanship might 
not recognize to be reasonable and just. If we have 
no right to demand guarantees for the future ; if 
we have no right to insist upon significant acts of 
loyal submission from the rebel leaders themselves ; 
if we have no right to demand the positive, 
popular vote in favor of the guarantees we need; 



18 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

if we may not stipulate for the recognition of the 
just rights of the slaves, whom, in the act of sup- 
pressing the rehellion, we converted from slaves into 
freemen, then I declare that we had no right to 
emancipate the slaves, nor to suppress the rebellion. 

It may be asked ; Why not demand the suffrage 
for colored men, in season for their vote in the 
business of re-organization ? My answer is — I 
assume that the colored men are in favor of those 
measures which the Union needs to have adopted. 
But it would be idle to re-organize those States by 
the colored vote. If the popular vote of the white 
race is not to be had in favor of the guarantees 
justly required, then I am in favor of holding on — 
just where we now are. I am not in favor of a 
surrender of the present rights of the Union to a 
struggle between a white minority aided by the 
freedmen on the one hand, against a majority of 
the white race on the other. I would not consent, 
having rescued those States by arms from secession 
and rebellion, to turn them over to anarchy and chaos. 
I have, however, no doubt — none whatever — of our 
right to stipulate for colored suffrage. The question 
is one of statesmanship, not a question of constitu- 
tional limitation. 

If it is urged that the suffrage question is one 
peculiarly for the States, I reply: so also that of 
the abolition of slavery ordinarily would have been. 
But we are not now deciding what a loyal State, 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 19 

acting in its constitutional sphere, and in its normal 
relations to the Union, may do ; but what a rebel, bel- 
ligerent, conquered State must do, in order to be 
re-organized and to get back into those relations. And 
in deciding this, I must repeat that we are to be 
governed only by Justice, Humanity, the Public 
Safety, and our duty to re-organize those conquered, 
belligerent States, as we can and when we can, 
consistently therewith. 

In dealing with those States, with a view to ful- 
filling the national guaranty of a republican form of 
government, it is plain, since the nation is called upon 
to re-organize government, w^liere no loyal republican 
State Government is in existence, that it must, of abso- 
lute necessity, deal directly with the People themselves. 
If a State government were menaced and in danger of 
subversion, then the nation would be called upon to 
aid the existing government of the State in sustaining 
itself against the impending danger. But the present 
case is a different one. The State Government was 
subverted in each rebel State more than four years 
ago. The State, in its corporate capacity, went into 
rebellion ; and as long as it had the power, waged 
and maintained against the nation rebellious war. 
There is no government in them to deal with. But 
there are the people. It is to the people we must 
go. It is through their people alone, and it is in 
their primary capacity alone, as people, unorganized 
and without a government, that the nation is capable 



20 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

now of dealing with them at all. And, therefore, 
the government of the nation is obliged, by the sheer 
necessity of the case, to know who are the people of 
the State, in the sense of the National Constitution, in 
order to know how to reach them. * Congress, dis- 
cerning new people, with new rights, and new duties 
and new interests (of the nation itself even), springhig 
from them, may rightfully stipulate in their behalf. 
If Congress perceives that it cannot fulfil its guaranty 
to all the people of a State, without such a stipula- 
tion, then it not only may, but it ought to, require 
and secure it. The guaranty is one concerning all, 
not merely a ^yart of the People. And, though the 
government of a State might be of republican form, 
and yet not enfranchise its colored citizens ; still the 
substance and equity of the guaranty would be vio- 
lated, if, in addition to their non-enfranchisement, the 
colored people should be compelled to share the 
burdens of a State Government, the benefits of which 
would enure to other classes, — to their own exclusion. 
A republican form of government is not of neces- 
sity just and good. Nor is another form, of necessity, 
unjust and bad. A monarch may be humane, 
thoughtful and just to every class and to every man. 
A republic may be inhumane, regardless of, and 
uiijust to, some of its subjects. Our National 
government and most of the State governments 
were so, to those whom they treated as slaves, 
or whose servitude they aggravated by their legisla- 



1866.] * SENATE— No. 2. 21 

tion in the interest of Slavery. The Nation cannot 
hereafter pretend that it has kept its promise and 
fulfilled its guaranty, when it shall have only organ- 
ized governments of republican form^ unless it can 
look all the people in the face, and declare that it has 
kept its promise with them all. The voting class alone 
— those who possessed the franchise under the State 
Constitutions — were not the People. They never 
were the People. They are not now. They were 
simply the Trustees of a certain power, for the benefit 
of all the people, and not merely for their own advan- 
tage. The nation does not fulfil its guaranty by 
dealing with them alone. It may deal through them, 
with the people. It may accept their action as satis- 
factory, in its discretion. But, no matter who may be 
the agents, through whom the nation reaches and 
deals with the people, that guaranty of the National 
Constitution is fatally violated, unless the nation 
secures to all the people of those disorganized 
States the substantial benefits and advantages 
of A Government. We cannot hide behind a 
ivord. We cannot be content with the '■^ formy 
The substance bargained for is a Government. The 
" form " is also bargained for, but that is only an 
incident. The people, and all the people alike, must 
have and enjoy the benefits and advantages of a gov- 
ernment., for the common good, the just and equal 
protection of each and all. 

But, What of the policy of the President ? I am 



22 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. * [Jan. 

not able to consider his future policy. It is undis- 
closed. He seems to me to have left to Congress 
alone the questions controlling the conditions on 
which the rebel States shall resume their representa- 
tive power in the Federal Government. It was not 
incumbent on the President to do otherwise. He 
naturally leaves the duty of theoretical reasoning to 
those whose responsibility it is to reach the just prac- 
tical conclusion. Thus far the President has simply 
used, according to his proper discretion, the power of 
commander-in-chief. What method he should observe 
was a question of discretion ; in the absence of any 
positive law, to be answered by himself He might 
have assumed, in the absence of positive law — during 
the process of re-organization — purely military meth- 
ods. Had that . been needful, it would have been 
appropriate. If not necessary, then it would have 
been unjust and injurious. It is not just to oppress 
even an enemy, merely because we have the power. 
In a case like the present, it would be extremely 
impolitic, and injurious to the nation itself. Bear in 
mind, ours is not a conquest by barbarians, nor by 
despots ; but by Christians and republicans. The 
commander-in-chief was bound to govern with a view 
to promoting the true restoration of the power of the 
Union, as I attempted to describe it in the beginning of 
this addi-ess ; not merely with a view to the present, 
immediate control of the daily conduct of the people. 
He deemed it wise, therefore, to resort to the demo- 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 23 

cratic principle, to use the analogies of republicanism 
and of constitutional liberty. He had the power to 
govern through magistrates, under military or under 
civil titles. He could employ the agencies of popular 
and of representative assemblies. Their authority 
has its source, however, in his own war powers as 
commander-in-chief. If the peace of society, the 
rights of the government, and of all its subjects, are 
duly maintamed, then the method may justify itself 
by its success as well as its intention. If he has 
assisted the people to re-organize their legislatures, 
and to re-establish the machinery of local State gov- 
ernment ; though his method may be less regular 
than if an act of Congress had prescribed it, still, 
it has permitted the people to feel their way back 
into the works and ways of loyalty, to exhibit 
their temper of mind, and to " show their hands." 
Was it not better for the cause of free govern- 
ment, of civil liberty, to incur the risk of error in 
that direction, than ' of error in the opposite one ? 
It has proved that the national government is not 
drunk with power ; that its four years' exercise of 
the dangerous rights of war has not affected its 
brain. It has shown that the danger of despotic 
centralism, or of central despotism, is safely over. 

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the transmission of 
the seals to State magistrates chosen by vote in the 
States themselves ; notwithstanding the inauguration, 
in fact, of local legislatures, the powers of war remain. 



24 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

The commander-in-chief has not abdicated. His 
generals continue in the field. They still exercise 
military functions, according to the belligerent rights 
of the nation. What the commander-in-chief may here- 
after do, whether less or more, depends, I presume, 
in great measure on what the people of the rebel 
States may do or forbear doing. I assume that, until 
the executive and legislative departments of the 
national government shall have reached the united 
conclusion that the objects of the war have been fully 
accomplished, the national declaration of peace is not, 
and cannot be made. 

The proceedings already had, are only certain acts 
in the great drama of Ke-organization. They do not 
go for nothing ; they were not unnecessary ; nor do I 
approach them with criticism. But they are not the 
whole drama. Other acts are required for its com- 
pletion. What they shall be, depends in part on 
the wisdom of Congress to determine. 

The doctrme of the President that — in the steps 
preliminary to re-organizing a State which is not, and 
has not been theoretically cut off from the Union — 
he must recognize its own organic law, antecedent to 
the rebelhon, need not be contested. I adhere, 
quite as strictly as he, to the logical consequences 
of that doctrine. I agree that the Rebel States ought 
to come back again into the exercise of their State 
functions and the enjoyment of their representative 
power — by the action and by the votes, of the same 



1866.] SENATE— No 2. 25 

class of persons, namely, the same body of voters, or 
tenants of political rights and privileges, by the votes, 
action or submission of whom, those States were car- 
ried into the rebellion. 

But, yet, it may be, at the same time, needful 
and proper, in the sense of wise statesmanship, 
to require of them the amplification of certain 
privileges, the recognition of certain rights, the 
establishment of certain institutions, the re-distri- 
bution even of political power — to be by them 
accorded and executed through constitutional 
amendments, or otherwise — as elements of accept- 
able re-organization ; and as necessary to the 
re-adjustment of political society in harmony with 
the new relations, and the new basis of universal 
freedom, resulting from the Rebellion itself. If 
these things are found to be required by wise 
statesmanship, then the right to exact them, as condi- 
tions of restoring those States to the enjoyment of 
their normal functions, is to be found, just where the 
Nation found the right to crush the Rebellion and the 
incidental right of emancipating Slaves. 

Now, distinctions between men, as to their rights, 
purely arbitrary, and not founded in reason, nor in the 
nature of things, are not wise, statesmanlike, nor 
" Republican," in the constitutional sense. If they 
ever are wise and statesmanlike, they become so, only 
where oligarchies, privileged orders and hereditary 
aristocracies are wise and expedient. 
i 



26 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

There are two kinds of Republican government, 
however, known to political science, viz. : Aristocratic 
Republics and Democratic Republics, or those in 
which the government resides with a few persons, or 
ivith a privileged body, and those in which it is 
the government of the People. I cannot doubt that 
nearly all men are prepared to admit that our govern- 
ments — both State and National — are constitutionally 
democratic, representative republics. That theory of 
government is expressly set forth in the Declaration 
of Independence. The popular theory of government 
is again declared in the preamble to the Federal Con- 
stitution. The Federal government is elaborately 
constructed according to the 'theory of popular and 
representative government, and against the aristocratic 
theory, in its distinguishing features. And, in 
divers places, the Federal Constitution, in set terms, 
presupposes the democratic and representative char- 
acter of the governments of the States ; for example, 
by assuming that they have legislatures, that their 
legislatures are composed of more than one body, 
and by aiming to prevent even all appearance of 
aristocratic form, by prohibiting the States from 
granting any title of nobility. In his recent message 
to Congress, President Johnson affirms " the great dis- 
tinguishing principle of the recognition of the rights 
of man^' as the fundamental idea, in all our govern- 
ments. " The American system," he adds, in the 
same paragraph, " rests on the assertion of the equal 



1866.] SENATE— No 2. 27 

right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and 
exercise of all his faculties." 

But, is it pretended that the idea of a government 
of the People, and for the People, in the American 
sense, is inclusive of the white race only, or is exclu- 
sive of men of African descent? On what ground 
can the position rest ? 

The citizenship of free men of color, even in those 
States where no provision of law seemed to include 
them in the category of voters, has been frequently 
demonstrated, not only as a legal right, but as a right 
asserted and enjoyed. 

Nay more ; both under the confederation, and at 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States, all free native born inhabitants of the 
States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 
New^ Jersey and North Carolina, though descended 
from African slaves, were not only citizens of those 
States, but such of them as had the other necessary 
qualifications, possessed the franchise of Electors on 
equal terms with other citizens. And even Virginia 
declares, in her ancient Bill of Rights, " that all men 
having sufficient evidence of permanent common 
interest with, and attachment to the community, 
have the right of suffrage." Wherever free colored 
men were recognized as free citizens or subjects, but 
were, nevertheless, not fully enfranchised, I think 
the explanation is found, not in the fact of their 



28 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

mere color nor of their antecedent servitude, but in 
the idea of their possible lapse into servitude again — 
of which condition their color was a badge and a con- 
tinuing presumption. The policy of some States seems 
to have demanded that Slavery should be the prevail- 
ing condition of all their inhabitants of African descent. 
In those States, the possession of freedom by a colored 
man has therefore been treated as if that condition was 
only exceptional and transient. But, wherever the 
policy and legislation of a State were originally 
dictated by men who saw through the confusion of 
ideas occasioned by the presence of Slavery, there 
we are enabled to discern the evidence of an 
unclouded purpose (with which the American mind 
always intended to be consistent,) viz. : The maintenance 
of equality between free citizens concerning civil rights, 
and the distribution of privileges, according to capacity 
and desert, and not according to the accidents of birth. 
And now that Slavery has been rendered forever 
impossible Avithin any State or Territory of the 
Union, by framing the great natural law of Universal 
Freedom into the organic Law of the Union, all the 
ancient disabilities which Slavery had made appar- 
ently attendant on African descent, must disappear. 
Whatever may be the rules regulating the distri- 
bution of political power among free citizens, in the 
organization of such a republican government as that 
guaranteed by the National Constitution, descent is 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 29 

neither the evidence of right, nor the ground of 
disfranchisement. 

The selection of a fraction or class, of the great 
body of freemen in the Civil State, to be permanently 
invested with its entire political power — (selected by 
mere human predestination, irrespective of merit) — 
that power to be incommunicable to the freemen of 
another class — the two classes, of rulers and ruled, 
governors and governed, to be determined by the acci- 
dent of birth, and all the consequences of that accident 
to descend by generation to their children — seems to 
me to be the establishment of an hereditary aristocracy 
of birth, the creation of a privileged order, inconsist- 
ent both with the substance and the essential form of 
American republicanism, unstatesmanlike and unwise; 
and, (in the rebel States,) in every sense, dangerous 
and unjust. 

To demand a certam qualification of intelligence is 
eminently safe, and consists with the interests and 
rights of all. It is as reasonable as to require a 
certain maturity of age. They who are the rep- 
resentatives of the political power of society, acting 
not only for themselves, but also for the women 
and children, who too belong to it ; representing the 
interests of the wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, 
infant sons, and the posterity of us all, ought to 
constitute an audience reasonably competent to hear. 
And, since the congregation of American Voters is 
numbered by millions, and covers a continent, it 



30 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

cannot hear with its ears all that it needs to know ; 
but must learn intelligently much that it needs to 
know, through the printed page and by means of its 
eyes. The .protection of the mass of men against 
the deceptions of local demagogues, and against their 
own prejudices hereafter — as well as the common 
safety — calls for the requirement of the capacity to 
read the mother tongue, as a condition of coming for 
the first time to the ballot-box. Let this be required at 
the South, and immediately the whole Southern com- 
munity will be aroused to the absolute necessity of 
demanding free schools and popular education. These 
are, more than all things else, to be coveted, both for 
the preservation of public liberty, and for the temporal 
salvation of the toiling masses of our own Saxon and 
Norman blood whom alike with the African slave, 
the oppression of ages has involved in a common 
disaster. 

I think the wisest and most intelligent persons in 
the South are not ignorant of the importance of 
raising the standard of intelligence among voters ; nor 
of extending the right to vote, so as to include those 
who are of competent mtellect, notwithstanding the 
recent disability of color. There is evidence that 
they are not unwilling to act consistently with 
the understanding, example, and constitutional 
precedents of the fathers of the Republic; con- 
sistently with the ancient practice of the States, 
coeval with the organic law of the nation, estab- 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 31 

lislied by the very men who made that law, who 
used and adopted the very phrase, " a repubUcan form 
of government," of the meanmg of which then- own 
practice was a contemporary- interpretation. But if 
the conquering power of the nation, if the. victorious 
arm of the Union is paralyzed ; if the federal govern- 
ment, standing behind the ramparts of defensive war, 
wielding its weapons, both of offence in the hour of 
struggle, and of diplomacy in the hour of triumph, is 
utterly powerless to stipulate for the execution of this 
condition; then I confess I do not know how the best 
and wisest in the South will be enabled, deserted and 
alone, to stand up on its behalf, against the jealousy 
of ignorance and the traditions of prejudice. 

If the measures I have attempted to delineate, are 
found to be impracticable, then Congress has still the 
right to refuse to the Rebel States re-admission to 
the enjoyment of their representative power, until 
amendments to the Federal Constitution shall have 
been obtained adequate to the exigency. Nor can the 
people of the rebel States object to the delay. They 
voluntarily withdrew from Congress ; they themselves 
elected the attitude of disunion. They broke the 
agreements of the constitution : not we. They chose 
their own time, opportunity and occasion to make war 
on the Nation, and to repudiate the Union. They 
certainly cannot now dictate to us the time nor the 
terms. Again, I repeat, the just discretion of the 



32 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

nation — exercised in good faith towards all — must 
govern. 

The Federal Union was formed, first of all, " to 
establish justice.'' " Justice," in the language of 
statesmen and of jurists, has had a definition, for more 
than two thousand years, exact, perfect, and well 
understood. 

It is found in the Institutes of Justinian, — 

"Constans et perpetua voluntas, jus suum cuique tribuendi." 

" The constant and perpetual will to secure to evert man his own eight." 

I believe I have shown that under our federal 
Constitution, — 

1. All the i3eople of the rebel States must share in 
the benefits to be derived from the execution of the 
national guaranty of repubhcan governments. 

2. That our " republican form of government " de- 
mands " The maintenance of equality hetweeii free 
citizens concerning civil rights, aiid the distribution of 
PRIVILEGES, according to capacity and desert^ and not 
according to the accidents of birth.'' 

3. That people " of African descent," not less than 
people of the white race, are included within the 
category of free subjects and citizens of the United 
States. 

4. That, in the distribution of political power, under 
our form of government, " desceist is neither the evidence 
of right, nor the ground of disfranchisement," so that 

5. The disfranchisement of free citizens, for the 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 33 

cause of " descent" or for any reason other than 
lawful disqualification, as by non-residence, imma- 
turity, crime, or want of intelligence, violates their 
constitutional rights. 

6 . That, in executing our national guaranty of repub- 
lican government to the people of the rebel States, we 
must secure the constitutional, civic liberties and 
franchises of all the people. 

7. That we have no right to omit to secure to the 
new citizens, made free by the Union, in war, their 
equality of rights before the law, and their franchises of 
every sort — including the electoral franchise — accord- 
ing to laws and regulations, of universal, and not of 
unequal and capricious, application. 

We have no right to evade our own duty. We must 
not, by substituting a new basis for the apportionment 
of representatives in Congress, give up the just rights 
of these citizens. Increasing the proportion of the 
political power of the loyal States, at the expense of 
the disloyal States, by adopting thek relative numbers 
of legal voters, instead of their relative populations — 
while it might punish some States for not according the 
suffrage to colored men — would not be justice to the 
colored citizen. For justice demands, "/or every man 
HIS OWN right r 

Will it be said that, by such means, we shall strengthen 
our own power in the loyal States, to protect the 
colored people in the South 1 If we wiU not yield to 



34 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

them justice now, on what ground do we expect grace 
to give them ^^ protection" hereafter? 

You will have compromised for a consideration — 
paid in an increase of your OAvn political power — 
your right to urge their voluntary enfranchisement on 
the white men of the South. You will have bribed 
all the elements of political selfishness, in the whole 
country, to combine against negro enfranchisement. 
The States of the rebellion will have no less power 
than ever in the Senate. And the men who hold the 
privilege of electing representatives to the lower 
house, will retain their privilege. For the sake of 
doubling the delegation from South Carolina, do you 
suppose the monopoly of choosing three members 
would be surrendered by the whites, giving to the 
colored men the chance to choose six 1 Nay : — Would 
the monopolists gain anything by accordmg the suf- 
frage to the colored man; if they could themselves 
only retain the power to dictate three representatives, 
and the colored people should dictate the selection of 
the other three ? 

The scheme to substitute legal voters, instead of 
population, as the basis of representation in Congress, 
will prove a delusion and a snare. By dimuiishing 
the representative power of the Southern States, in 
favor of other States, you will not increase Southern 
love for the Union. Nor, while Connecticut and 
Wisconsin refuse the suffrage to men of color, will 
you be able to convince the South that your amend- 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 35 

ment was dictated by political principle, and not by 
political cupidity. You will not diminish any honest 
apprehension at extending the suffrage, but you 
will inflame every prejudice, and aggravate dis- 
content. Meanwhile, the disfranchised freedman, 
hated by some because he is black, contemned by some 
because he has been a slave, feared by some because 
of the antagonisms of society, is condemned to the 
condition of a hopeless pariah of a merciless civilization. 
In the community, he is not of it. He neither belongs 
to a master, nor to society. Bodily present in the 
midst of the society composing the State, he adds 
nothing to its weight in the political balance of the 
nation ; and therefore, he stands in the' way, occupies 
the room and takes the place, which might be enjoyed 
as opportunities by a white immigrant, who would 
contribute by his presence to its representative power. 
Your policy would inflame animosity and aggravate 
oppression, for at least the lifetime of a generation, 
before it would open the door to enfranchisement. 

Civil society is not an aggregation of individuals. 
According to the order of nature, and of the Divine 
economy, it is an aggregation of families. 

The adult males of the family vote ; because the 
welfare of the women and children of the family is 
identical with theirs ; and it is intrusted to their affec- 
tion and fidelity, whether, at the ballot-box, or on the 
battle-field. But, w^hile the voting men of a given 
community represent the welfare of its women and 



36 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

children, they do not represent that of another com- 
munity. The men, women and children of Massa- 
chusetts, are alike concerned in the ideas and interests 
of Massachusetts. But, the very theory of represen- 
tion implies that the ideas and interests of one State 
are not identical with those of another. On what 
ground, then, can a State on the Pacific, or the Ohio, 
gain preponderance in Congress over New Jersey or 
Massachusetts by reason of its greater number of 
males, while it may have even a less number of 
people? The halls of legislation are the arenas of 
debate, not of muscular prowess. The intelligence, 
the opinions, the wishes, and the influence of women, 
social and domestic, stand for something — for much — 
in the public affairs of civilized and reflned society. I 
deny the just right of the Government to banish 
woman from the count. She may not vote, but she 
thinks ; she persuades her husband ; she instructs 
•her son. And, through them, at least, she has a right 
to be heard in the government. Her existence, and 
the existence of her children, are to be considered in 
the State. 

No matter who changes ; let Massachusetts, at 
least, stand by all the fundamental principles of free, 
constitutional, republican government. 

The President is J:he Tribune of the People. Let 
him be chosen directly by the popular election. The 
Senate represents the reserved rights and the equality 
of the States. Let the Senators continue to be chosen 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. • 37 

by the Legislatures of the States. The House repre- 
sents the opinions, interests, and the equaUty of the 
people of each and every State. Let the people of 
the respective States elect their representatives, in 
numbers proportional to the numbers of their people. 
And let the legal qualifications of the voters, in the 
election of President, Vice-President, and Eepresenta- 
tives in Congress, be fixed by a uniform, equal, dem- 
ocratic, constitutional rule, of universal application. 
Let this franchise be enjoyed " according to capacity 
and desert, and not according to the accidents of birth.'' 
Congress may, and ought, to initiate an amendment 
granting the right to vote for President, Vice-President 
and Representatives in Congress, to colored men, in all 
the States, being citizens and able to read, who would 
by the laws of the States where they reside, be com- 
petent to vote if they were white. Without disfran- 
chising existing voters, it should apply the qualification 
to Avhite men also. And, the amendment ought to 
leave the election of President and Vice-President 
directly in the hands of the People,- without the 
intervention of electoral colleges. Then the poorest, 
humblest and most despised men, being citizens and 
competent to read, and thus competent, with reason- 
able intelligence, to represent others, 'would find 
audience through the ballot-box. The President, 
who is the Grand Tribune of all the People, 
and the direct delegates of the People in the 
popular branch of the National Legislature, would 



38 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

feel their influence. This amendment would give 
efficiency to the one already adopted, abolishing 
Slavery throughout the Union. The two amend- 
ments, taken together, would practically accomplish, 
or enable Congress to fulfil, the whole duty of the 
nation to those who are now its dependent wards. 

I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men at 
the South accept the present condition of things in 
good faith ; and I am also satisfied that with the 
support of a firm policy from the President and 
Congress, in aid of the efforts of their good faith, and 
with the help of a conciliatory and generous disposi- 
tion on the part of the North — especially on the part 
of those States most identified with the plan of eman- 
cipation — the measures needed for permanent and 
universal welfare can surely be obtained. There 
ought now to be a vigorous prosecution of the Peace, — 
just as vigorous as our recent prosecution of the 
War. We ought to extend our hands with cordial 
good-will to meet the proff"ered hands of the South ; 
demanding no attitude of humiliation from any; 
inflicting no acts of humiliation upon any ; respecting 
the feelings of the conquered — notwithstanding the 
question of right and wrong, between the parties 
belligerent. We ought, by all the means and instru- 
mentalities of peace, and by all the thrifty methods of 
industry ; by all the re-creative agencies of educa- 
tion and religion, to help rebuild the "waste places, 
and restore order, society, prosperity. Without 



1866.] SENATE— No. 2. 39 

industry and business there can be no progress. In 
their absence, civilized man even recedes towards 
barbarism. Let Massachusetts bear in mind the not 
unnatural suspicion which the past has engendered. 
1 trust she is able, filled with emotions of boundless 
joy, and gratitude to Almighty God, who has given 
such Victory and such Honor to the E-ight, to exercise 
faith in His goodness, without vain glory, and to 
exercise charity, without weakness, towards those who 
have held the attitude of her enemies. 

The oiFence of War has met its appropriate punish- 
ment by the hand of War. 

In this hour of Triumph, honor and religion alike 
forbid one act, one word, of vengeance or resentment. 
Patriotism and Christianity unite the arguments of 
earthly welfare, and the motives of Heavenly mspi- 
ration, to persuade us to put off all jealousy and all 
fear, and to move forward as citizens and as men, in 
the work of social and economic re-organization — 
each one doing with his might whatever his hand 
findeth to do. 

We might wish it were possible for Massachusetts 
justly to avoid her part in the work of political re- 
organization. But, in spite of whatever misunder- 
standing of her purpose or character, she must abide 
her destiny. She is a part of the Nation. The 
Nation, for its own ends, and its own advantage, 
as a measure of war, took out of the hands 



40 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 

of the masters, their slaves. It holds them, 
therefore, in its hands, as freedmen. It must place 
them, somewhere. It must dispose of them some- 
how. It cannot delegate the trust. It has no 
right to drop them, to desert them. For by its 
own voluntary act, it assumed their guardianship, 
and all its attendant responsibilities, before the 
present generation, and all the coming generations, 
of mankind. I know not how Avell, nor how ill, 
they might be treated by the people of the States 
where they reside. I only know that there is a 
point beyond which the Nation has no right to incur 
any hazai'd. And while the fidelity of the Nation 
need not abridge the humanity of the States ; on 
the other hand our confidence in those States cannot 
be pleaded before the bar of God, or of history, 
in defence of any neglect of our own duty. 

Let their people remember that Massachusetts has 
never deceived them. To her ideas of duty and her 
theory of the Government, she has been faithful. 
If they were ever misled or betrayed by others into 
the snare of attempted secession, and the risks of 
war, her trumpet at least gave no uncertain sound. 
She has fulfilled her engagements in the past, and she 
intends to fulfil them in the future. She knows that 
the re-organization of the States in rebellion carries 
with it consequences — which come home to the fire- 
sides and the consciences of her own children. For, as 



^866.] SENATE— No. 2. 41 

citizens of the Union, they become liable to assume 
the defence of those governments, when re-organized, 
a-ainst every menace, whether of foreign invasion 
or of domestic violence. Her bayonets may be 
invoked to put down insurgents of whatever color ; 
and whatever the cause, whether rightful or wrong- 
ful, which may have moved their discontent. And, 
when they are called for, they will march. If 
she were capable of evading her duty now, she 
would be capable -of violating her obhgations here- 
after. If she is anxious to prevent grave errors, 
it is because she appreciates, from her past experience, 
the danger of admitting such errors into the structure 
of government. She is watchful agamst them now, 
because in the sincere fidelity of her purpose, she is 
made keenly alive to the duties of the present, by 
contemplating the inevitable responsibilities of the 

future. 

In sympathy with the heart and hope of the 
nation, she will abide by her faith. Undisturbed by 
the impatient, undismayed by delay, "with malice 
towards none, with charity for all ; with firmness in 
tUe right, as God gives us to see the right," she wdl 
persevere. Impartial, democratic, constitutional hb- 
erty is invincible. The rights of human nature are 
sacred; maintained by confessors, and heroes and 
martyrs; reposing on the sure foundation of the 
commandments of God. 



42 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. [Jan. 'QQ. 

" Through plots and counterplots ; 
Through gain and loss ; through glory and disgrace ; 
Along the plains where passionate Discord rears 
Eternal Bahel ; still the holy stream 
Of human happiness glides on ! 
4i * * * * 

There is One above 
Sways the harmonious mystery of the world." 

Gentlemen: — For all the favors, unmerited and 
unmeasured, which I have enjoyed from the people 
of Massachusetts ; from the councillors, magistrates 
and officers by whom I have been surrounded in the 
government ; and from the members of five succes- 
sive Legislatures ; there is no return in my power to 
render, but the sincere acknowledgments of a grateful 
heart. 



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